TV Crime Log: Chasing Shadows
So, anyway. Here we are again. Refreshed and ready for some proper banter. Or something.
Let’s ease our way back in with news of something new on the box this week. Summer is over—there’s something on the telly! Hooray, etcetera. A lot of the good stuff starts next week, but Chasing Shadows looks like it may be worth a watch.
It’s a new four-part series, starting on ITV on Thursday night at 9pm. 9pm. Please don’t lose focus this early in the post.
The blurb will do a much better job of selling the whole thing than I will because somebody is actually paid to write it:
Chasing Shadows is a thrilling new drama which focuses on the work of a missing persons field unit charged with tracking down serial killers who prey on impressionable and vulnerable people.
After criticizing police procedure in the aftermath of the eventual capture of a serial killer, DI Sean Stone is seconded to the Missing Persons Bureau, assigned to a new ‘unit’ with MPB analyst Ruth Hattersley. In reality, Sean’s new assignment is made with the intention of keeping him out of the way. But when Sean comes across the case of a missing 16 year old girl, Taylor, he’s soon back out in the field.
On the face of it DS Stone is intense, socially awkward and a misfit. Get to know him and you realise he’s a man on a mission even if it leads him to self destruction and his eccentric manner frequently lands him in hot water. He’s obsessed with deciphering codes and uncovering patterns of behaviour particularly in relation to those most at risk, vulnerable missing persons.
Ruth Hattersley, on the other hand, is a stabilising influence. Maternal, but not mumsy, she’s an analyst from the Missing Persons Bureau tasked to work alongside Sean. In effect his bosses have sidelined him and she is his lifeline. Sean refuses to be tethered to Ruth, but eventually learns that he and Ruth make an awesome team. She has the ability to connect with people and has the expertise to trace missing persons. He is socially awkward and struggles to communicate; yet their strengths strike the perfect balance. On paper. In reality, it is a rocky partnership.
Anyway, those two people from Doctor Who are in it - you can see them in that photo, standing in a field of litter. And him from The Widower, which was very good. It’s written by Rob Williams - who wrote some of the DCI Bankses.
I saw them filming this a few months back. A lady in a yellow fluorescent jacket spoke into a walkie-talkie and police cars came flying around the corner and all these uniformed coppers piled out and raced into a cafe—to arrest somebody presumably, although I know for a fact that the buns are very nice in that establishment.
Then they came out and backed the squad cars up the road and did it all again, no doubt much to the enjoyment of the rush-hour traffic forced to sit and watch.
Not the greatest anecdote, I admit.
